NBA playoff formatting options in a shortened season

The in-season tourney idea

The timing of the NBA’s midseason tournament proposal is interesting in retrospect, because now there’s a chance for them to actually use it. The framework was to have a round-robin group stage, likely by division, and then proceed to a knockout round.

The groups don’t have to be done by division; they’re very imbalanced, and we have a significant chunk of the season to use for seeding. In addition, location is not as much of an issue if neutral sites are being used.

A benefit to this format is that every team can be included. A game between the Atlanta Hawks and Charlotte Hornets wouldn’t exactly be must-see T.V. — unless it was a playoff game.

If the league doesn’t want every team crashing this party, 24 is a nice number for tournament purposes. The bottom six teams — and only those six — would be put into the lottery cauldron.

Either way, the group stage would act as the first round of the playoffs. This would cut it down to eight remaining teams in about 10-11 days, the same as a best-of-five series would, but with more teams included.

Since 24 is a cleaner number, I’ll use it as our example. Four groups of six teams each would be made, with win/loss record being the determinant for placement. Based on seeds, they would look something like this:

• Group A: 1, 8, 9, 16, 17, 24
• Group B: 2, 7, 10, 15, 18, 23
• Group C: 3, 6, 11, 14, 19, 22
• Group D: 4, 5, 12, 13,  20, 21

After a round-robin (with the higher seed acting as the home team), two teams from each group would advance. Tiebreakers would be the typical ones for round-robin pools.

Another plus for this format is the elimination of conferences. This has been an issue facing the league for quite some time, and though the schedule would still have to be more balanced, this is at least a step in the right direction.